


Everything is Glowing

by Loser_Angel_666



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 04:27:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 19,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26347108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Loser_Angel_666/pseuds/Loser_Angel_666
Summary: Diego gets Patch’s message in time, meaning she doesn’t die and Klaus doesn’t go back in time. Luckily Dave isn’t a Vietnam soldier here, he’s a kind man working in a 24 hour diner who serves Klaus coffee. If Allison can talk Vanya out of starting the apocalypse, everything would be back to normal right?And what happens once they don't have an apocalypse to prepare for?
Relationships: Ben Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves, Diego Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves, Diego Hargreeves/Original Male Character(s), Klaus Hargreeves/David "Dave" Katz, Sissy Cooper/Vanya Hargreeves
Comments: 67
Kudos: 226





	1. 1

**Author's Note:**

> I don't have experience with addiction or ptsd so I'm sorry if I get some things wrong 
> 
> enjoy!! :)

Diego was speeding. This was the one goddamn time Patch actually listened to him, she had called him for help, and he was going to be late. What if she didn’t wait? And something happened and he couldn’t help? And Klaus. Klaus had been missing and no one even noticed.

Of course they had all assumed that he was just out getting high somewhere. But Diego knew Klaus was staying at the academy. They all knew. And they still hadn’t worried when he didn’t come back for two days. What if he was hurt? Diego couldn’t even stomach the thought of anything worse, but in the back of his mind, he was wondering if Patch had found him too late. If maybe the people in masks had killed him. And no one had even come for him.

The thought is immediately dismissed, but Diego steps on the gas a little harder, taking the corner into the parking lot much too fast.

Patch waited, and Diego doesn’t have time to say anything before she’s grabbing his wrist and pulling him down the hall. They look through every window, checking for shapes behind the curtains and listening for weird sounds and Diego has a pit growing in his stomach because Klaus might be stuck in one of these rooms and why hadn’t he been more worried.

Then they heard a light thumping sound and Patch was gesturing for a key card and Diego had his knife in his hands while Patch slid the door open. The room was dark. And seemingly empty. Until he looked to the side and saw Klaus, bloody and gagged and tied to a chair. He immediately dropped to the ground next to him, cutting the tape away with his knife. Klaus whimpered and stood up shakily, panic filling his eyes and Diego is horrified at the state of him.

The bathroom door creaks open quietly, Patch has her gun pointed towards it. A few shots are fired and Klaus dives behind the bed. 

“Freeze! Police, drop your weapon.”

Hazel drops the gun.

“Don’t move, hands in the air.” 

Klaus sees Cha-Cha sneaking by the window and he points roughly, shaking Diego to get his attention. The knife is being thrown as soon as he sees her, swiveling around the corner and stabbing Cha-Cha in the gut. Patch hears Cha-Cha hit the ground in pain and takes her attention off of Hazel for less then a second. But it’s enough time for him to have his gun back in his hands, shooting desperately towards Patch. She shoots back, and then he’s on the ground. 

“We have to get out of here,” Diego says, then he turns to Klaus, helping him to his feet, “Can you walk?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m good, a little- a little shaky,” He mutters, more to himself then to Diego, “Sirens, I hear sirens,” 

“Go, go, go,” Patch says, running over and kicking the gun away from Hazel in case he managed to get up. Then she’s helping Diego support Klaus as they make a beeline for the parking lot. 

***

Patch follows Diego in her own car back to the gym. Klaus is quiet most of the way, occasionally mumbling to himself as he stares out the window. 

“Five and Luther are in there.” Diego warns as they pull into the parking lot. Klaus picks up his head, groaning.

“Why?” He whines.

“Five got drunk, so me and Luther dragged him back here.”

“Really? Can’t picture that.” Klaus grumbles. “Can’t we just go back to the academy? Or stay in the car?”

“Klaus, you need to get cleaned up. And eat something, at least get some clothes.”

“Fine.” He says, pushing open the car door. Patch is already out of her car and coming towards them.

Luther is sitting in the chair by the bed and Five is still sleeping when Klaus, Diego, and Patch come in. 

“Move him over, Klaus, sit down,” Diego says, gesturing to Five. Luther stands quickly and maneuvers Five over to make room for Klaus to sit at the foot of the bed. 

“What happened to you?”

“I got tortured!” Klaus says in a slightly hysterical voice. Patch is talking to Diego quietly and then Diego is going over to some cabinet and comes back with a towel and some fresh clothes.

Half an hour later, Klaus is a lot less bloody and his wounds have been cleaned, though with his withdrawal and the injuries, he certainly doesn’t feel any kind of nice. 

Klaus desperately wishes he could sleep, like Five, but he doesn’t really want to share a bed with the little bastard. Five reeks of alcohol and he kicks in his sleep sometimes and Klaus guesses he’d probably be too plagued by nightmares to get much shut eye anyway, so he sticks with sitting at the table with a glass of lukewarm water and his two brothers eyeing him carefully.

“You got waffles?” Klaus asks finally. Diego gets up and opens his tiny old fridge, searching through the drawers for anything edible.

“I’ve got eggs. Lettuce. I need to go shopping,” He mutters the last part to himself.

“Never mind. I guess I’ll starve.” Klaus says dramatically. Diego sighs at him. Exasperated but not just with Klaus. 

He knew Klaus needed to eat. It wasn’t likely that his captors fed him, and though Diego had no doubt he would live if they waited till morning, he had also just been brutally tortured for two days. He deserved some goddamn waffles. Even if it was nearly midnight.

“We passed a 24 hour diner on the way here, it probably has waffles. Put on the shirt I gave you.” Diego grumbled and Klaus had obviously not expected Diego to bring him for waffles, but he certainly wasn’t going to decline.

“Do you not have any… prettier… clothes?” 

“No. I don’t do pretty. I do practical.”

“I don’t know, you’re pretty sometimes,” Patch interjects and Diego tries not to get flustered. “I have some old clothes in the back of my car I was going to get rid of,” She says and Klaus immediately perks up. 

Patch hadn’t been sure he would want to wear her clothes. They were, after all, women's, but Klaus seemed to be excited, so she brought in the old bin from her car. Klaus picked out a loose, colorful blouse with a v-neck that barely hid the stab wounds on his chest, but it was light and flowy so it wouldn’t irritate the cuts. He paired it with a black skirt and some of Diego's old boots. 

Patch thought he looked better then she had in that shirt and Diego seemed like he couldn’t care less about what Klaus wore, as long as he wasn’t going to freeze to death. Luckily, it wasn’t a cold night. Patch left after reassurance that they would all be okay and that Diego would update her the next day, and Luther stayed behind again with Five, who was beginning to regain consciousness.

“Bring him back a coffee or something.”

And so there they were. In a little 24 hour diner with a cup of coffee each and a plate of waffles in front of Klaus.

“Do you guys need anything else?” The boy who took their orders asks, and Klaus gets his first good look at him.

He’s around Klaus’ age, blond curly hair, average height and build. He’s cute. He’s staring at Klaus a little too hard. Not harsh, just fixated. Klaus smiles at him and he flushes immediately, smiling back and looking away.

“I think we’re all set, Diego?”

Diego orders eggs, and once the guy walks away, he turns to look at Klaus expectantly.

“What?” Klaus asks defensively.

“You were staring at him.”

“He was staring at me first!”

“Whatever, just not in front of my eggs.”

“Your eggs aren’t here yet,”

Diego grumbles and sips his coffee, but he doesn’t actually seem too bothered. It’s late, so they’re the only customers with only a few ghosts here and there that Klaus strategically ignores. Diego must catch him fidgeting in the corner of his eyes, but he doesn’t mention it and Klaus tries not to make it noticeable. Ben had finally showed up and was able to hold off the few ghosts that were there, but Klaus still flinched when one suddenly yelled into his ear, spilling his hot coffee over his hand.

“Oh no! I didn’t mean to startle you, I’ll go get towels,” The boy says, rushing back to the kitchen. Klaus blinks out of his daze, he hadn’t even noticed him come over with Diego’s food, but apparently his jump scare passed for being startled. Diego, on the other hand, saw through it.

“What was that?” He asks quietly while Klaus tries to mop up his coffee with napkins. It’s not working.

“Just startled me, no big deal.”

“Are you… are you sober?”

“Unfortunately.” Klaus huffs. That’s when the counter boy comes back with much better quality towels and he helps clean up Klaus’ coffee.

“Thank you…” Klaus checks his name tag, “Dave.”

“No problem, would you like a refill, on the house,”

“Oh! If you’re sure,” Dave winks and takes Klaus’ mug. Klaus stares after him until Diego clears his throat.

“Well what’s going on then?” He asks and Klaus shrugs, but he really doesn’t feel like arguing or coming up with stupid excuses that Diego will see through anyway.

“The drugs keep away the ghosts”

“Oh.”

“Yep,”

“So that was…?”

“A good ol’ ghostie tried to sneak attack me,” Klaus says lightly. “Ben got rid of it for now, but they’re always there, they’re loud too, morbid motherfuckers.”

“Really?” Diego doesn’t know why he’s surprised, it makes sense that Klaus turned to drugs to keep the ghosts away. He had always hated his power, everyone knew that. Diego just didn’t consider that he could always see them. “You can’t block them out?”

“I don’t know how.” Klaus shrugs and then he smiles at Dave, who puts down a fresh cup of coffee. “Dave! Your coffee is lovely” He smiles sweetly and Dave laughs, rolling his eyes, but his cheeks are red and he mumbles a soft “thank you” before disappearing into the back.

“I think he’s interested.” Diego says and Klaus shrugs.

“Of course he is. Who would be into this?” He gestures to himself and takes a sip of coffee, promptly burning his tongue.

***

Klaus has no reason to stay sober. But he looks at Diego, who actually seems proud of him for once, even if his current sobriety was forced on him. He wonders if anyone would take him seriously if he was sober. Or would they just think he’s lying. Would he still be considered useless?

The next few days feel rushed and loud and just too much. Five blinks in and out with his stupid suitcases while everyone argues over whether or not they should actually bother saving the world. Klaus goes back to the coffee shop once, and he talks to Dave.

“If the world was going to end, and you could save it… would you?” Klaus asks him.

“I would. The world can feel like a terrible place, but there are good things too.” He says. Of course Dave would be the optimistic kind of guy. 

“But it sucks so much.” Klaus whines and puts his head down in his hands for a minute. Dave chuckles at the dramatics of it and pours coffee for another customer while he talks to Klaus.

“Yes, but if the world ended, i wouldn’t have the chance to talk to you again.” Dave said and it’s really not that big of a deal, but Klaus’ heart fucking melts on the spot.

“That was really fucking sweet, Dave. Don’t do that to my heart, it’s close to collapse without you trying to make it melt.” Klaus jokes and Dave shakes his head smiling, face flushed. 

The lady sitting a few stools down from Klaus looks at them fondly. She looks like she wants to call them cute, but Klaus is glad when she doesn’t. Instead she takes her to-go cup, and smiles at them as she leaves. Now Klaus is the only customer and Dave comes over to where he’s sitting with two pastries on a plate. 

“Sometimes I get nightmares.” Dave says, taking a bite of a pastry. “It’s terrifying. I wake up alone and it’s dark and cold and I’m all sweaty. I’m usually on edge all morning. Sometimes even after some tea I feel restless and jumpy.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because even on those days, I feel a little bit better if I’ve had someone to talk to. When you came in here you looked like you were kind of going through it.”

“Oh… thanks?”

“I just- I know… I’m just a barista in a random coffee shop, but the world isn’t ending. Even if it feels like it, and you don’t have to deal with shit alone you know?” Klaus scoffs internally. Because the world literally is ending. And it’s not like he can talk to his siblings about trying to get sober, that would be hell on earth. So he is in this alone. At least somewhat.

“Thanks,” Klaus says and Dave can probably tell that it’s dry, but he doesn’t push. He offers the second pastry to Klaus with a sympathetic smile.

“On the house,” He says, “I hope to see you again soon.” Dave says and Klaus decides in that moment, that Dave is actually kind of fucking adorable. 

He already knew it, objectively, but something about the way he talks feels familiar. Kind and vulnerable and he seems like such a stable person it throws Klaus off balance. And the little pastry tastes like sunshine and happiness and warmth. Klaus feels like absolute shit. But he thinks maybe he’ll help save the world anyway.

When Luther leaves him on the floor of a rave, dead, and Reginald has a few things to say about Klaus’ position in the family as the disappointment, Klaus thinks maybe when he’s back in the land of the living, just a little bit of something to take the edge off wouldn’t hurt.

But in the end, he doesn’t have a second of time between getting back and finding Allison with her throat slit, laying in a hospital bed and Vanya locked behind a too heavy door. And Ben chooses now to make himself fucking solid enough to throw a punch and Klaus thinks he has even less control over his powers than he realizes. 

The academy crumbles, and Mom and Pogo don’t make it, but there isn’t time for grieving. Klaus has to hold Diego away from going back into the collapsing building, and Klaus, who hadn’t had the time to think about Dave at all since he left the coffee shop, thinks about how he had said the world isn’t really ending. And about how Klaus had kind of believed him, for a split second. But now the academy is a pile of rubble, and his sister is literally about to start the apocalypse. So that's probably not good.


	2. 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vanya lost control of her powers during her concert and if everyone one just listened to Allison and didn't try to ATTACK THEIR SISTER who is just scared and confused, then maybe they would have been able to avoid the apocalypse!!
> 
> But even if they were to stop this apocalypse... whats to say there won't be another one? and is there a way to prevent it from surfacing?

Somehow, Allison is able to get to Vanya before Luther and the rest of them try to attack. By the time they’re all in position, Vanya, still glowing, has lowered her Violin bow. She’s looking at Allison thoughtfully, who is holding out her little yellow notebook with a soft smile. Vanya steps forward to take it, and Luther looks like he’s about to charge, but someone holds him back. 

Vanya drops the violin, still holding the bow, and flips through the pages of Allison’s pre-written speech. As she reads, her eyes begin to dim back to their normal color and her skin warms. She looks up at Allison, vulnerable and confused and hopeful and Allison steps forward, opening her mouth to try and say something even though she knows nothing will come out. 

“I’m sorry,” Vanya chokes out and Allison shakes her head coming right up to the edge of the stage. Vanya shakes her head, apologizing again, but Allison reaches up and grabs the hand that isn’t still holding the violin bow, when Vanya looks back up at her, Allison mouths I love you. 

Vanya crumples to her knees at the edge of the stage, dropping the bow and returning back to normal completely, except for her white suit. Allison hugs her, even though it’s an awkward angle, with one of them kneeling on the stage and the other standing in front of it. The rest of the family looks at them, surprised, confused, and relieved, before slowly coming out of the shadows to sit with Vanya.

They exchange a few words, most of them angry, blame-filled, and fearful, before they decide to head back to the academy before the police show up. Unfortunately, the academy had been destroyed by Vanya, so they ended up squeezed into a booth at Griddy’s Diner instead. The silence is tense when the waiter comes to take their order. And it remains tense after they’ve each ordered and the waiter has disappeared behind the counter.

“What now?” Klaus starts off.

“Well, she’s still dangerous,” Luther says, and that starts a round of arguing between Luther, Diego and Klaus.

“She was scared!” 

“She can’t control it!”

“Can you blame her? Dad locker her up and drugged her,”

“Well it worked! She was harmless for how many years!”

“We are not drugging our sister!”

“Klaus does it!”

“Hey!”

“Klaus does a lot of things, and Klaus isn’t Vanya.”

“So what then?” Luther says exasperated.

“We could train her.” Five finally interrupts, glaring everyone down over his coffee cup. 

“You all know I’m sitting right here, right?” Vanya speaks up quietly and everyone looks at her.

“Do you think she could learn to control it?” Diego asks, and everyone (Luther, Five and Diego) go back back to arguing.

“You’ll learn to control it.” Klaus says and he seems so sure of it that Vanya believes him. “You didn’t end the world tonight, that counts for something!”

“We’ll figure it out.” Allison writes, and puts her arm around Vanya’s shoulder. Vanya nods and smiles and only a short 5 minutes later, Five has managed to stop whatever argument was happening.

“Okay, so Vanya. I think it’ll be best to start training soon. Until then avoid anything that might be upsetting.

“Okay, so avoid family discussions,” Klaus jokes, putting his arm around Vanya’s shoulders over Allison’s.

“Shut up Klaus.” 

“Wait no, Klaus, what the hell man?” Diego says, pointing at him as if suddenly remembering something dramatic.

“Oh great. Now they’re looking at me. What did I do now?”

“Ben?” Diego says incredulously and Klaus sits up straighter. 

“Oh! yeah, Ben. He’s here. Kind of falling off the bench, but he’s here.” Klaus says. They all turn to look at the end of the bench where Ben is supposedly sitting. Ben waves, even if they can’t see him.

One side of the table is Allison, Vanya, and Klaus in a booth, with Ben on the end. And across from them is Diego, squished so tight against the wall he might suffocate, Five, who seems to have plenty of room, and Luther, who is falling off the bench and has the table pushed away at an angle so it’s right in front of Klaus. 

“So you’re telling us… our dead brother has been here this entire time?” Luther asks.

“I mean… I did tell you. Not my fault you didn’t believe me.”

“Yes it is.”

“You aren’t always so trustworthy, man,”

“I thought you were hallucinating or something.”

“Glad to see you all think so highly of me.” Klaus grumbled and Diego has enough sense to look ashamed. Allison pats Klaus’ arm behind Vanya.

“Well we believe you now.” Vanya says and Klaus nods, looking at the spot where Ben is.

“And we’re sorry.” Allison writes, passing the paper over to Klaus.

“I guess you're forgiven.”

“Maybe Klaus should train too.” Diego says from the corner. He looks angrier than a cat in a bath, all squished up against the wall with Five and Luther taking up the entire bench, Klaus almost wants to laugh, but he holds himself back, instead addressing Diego’s suggestion, which sends a chill down his spine.

“Train, how?” He asks skeptically. And he knows realistically, his siblings aren’t really like Dad, but flashes of cold cement walls and the screams of corpses flash behind his eyelids and the word training reminds him of being 13 and stuck in the dark, cold, crowded mausoleum.

“Well what did Dad do?” Of course they had to ask that. 

“Well, all sorts of things, none of them worked though. I’m still just as useless as I’ve always been.”

“Well you summoned Ben, so that's obviously not true.” Luther says, to Klaus’ surprise.

“I suppose you’re right,”

“Maybe we should scrap Dad’s methods and just start simple.” Five says. And Klaus silently thanks the little girl god that his childhood trauma would remain a secret another day.

Halfway through their coffee discussion, someone comes to offer Luther a chair at the end of the table, which gives Diego and Five enough room to actually spread out. The plan has been agreed upon; Klaus and Vanya (and whoever else wants to) will train starting the next morning, and they will all work on staying in touch and friendly. 

Hopefully through developing their relationships and their powers, the end of the world can be put off for quite a bit longer. Vanya suggests group therapy, which they all immediately opt out of, and so she suggests individual therapy, which they only halfheartedly agree to consider. 

They stay at Griddy’s until someone comes to kick them out and it’s only then that they realize they have nowhere else to go. Vanya and Diego do, but that’s only 2 of 6 people who need a place to stay. 

“We could get a motel,”

“Nope. Not doing that, I’d rather go back to the streets.” Klaus says, and Diego looks at him with sympathy.

“You could stay with me.” Vanya offers and Klaus gratefully accepts. 

“Ben and I make wonderful roommates, I promise,”

“I don’t have anywhere for someone else to sleep, sorry,” Diego says, even though he doesn’t sound very sorry at all and Klaus distinctly remembers Diego pulling a tiny mattress out of some closet for Klaus when he managed to find him in some alleyway. 

The rest of them figure out hotel rooms, Five says he has business to attend to, and then they’re all on their way to their beds for the night. Klaus on Vanya’s couch, Vanya in her own bed, Diego in his little room at the gym. Luther and Allison in (separate) hotel rooms. Five is who knows where. 

They have no clue what happens next. But at least the world hasn’t ended.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again,
> 
> I'm trying to update daily (for now) 
> 
> but I already have the third chapter written so if I get impatient maybe I'll update again tonight
> 
> Sorry no Dave in this chapter, but we get some sibling rivalry and bonding (and he's in the next chapter so:))


	3. 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Hargreeves need to settle into their new life post-apocalypse, everything seems to be falling into a normal routine (as normal as it can get when you're part of the Umbrella Academy anyway)....
> 
> Time moves a little fast at the beginning, i skipped a week or so I think

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's some Diego content for you (bi Diego, because I'm bi and lonely) 
> 
> and also some more Klaus and Dave because oh my gosh I love them

The following week is chaotic, to say the least. Klaus moves semi-permanently onto Vanya’s couch and Luther finds a small apartment and gets a job at the gym, despite Diego’s distaste for that idea.

They found a large, empty field only a few hours away from civilization to use for training. When Five isn’t helping with training, he’s at the commission, but he won’t tell anyone what he’s doing so the only hints as to what is going on with the time-line come from his muttering and one sided conversations with Delores. 

Hazel and Cha-Cha aren’t dead though, which can only mean a handful of not good things. On top of that, Five has been talking to himself quite a bit more often than is normal, even for him. He mostly spends his “free time” at Vanya’s apartment, and the amount of times Klaus or Vanya has caught him murmuring about a second apocalypse, or a third, fourth, fifth, doomsday, might be worrying if he didn’t follow up with “But that’s not realistic” or something along those lines. 

He inhales more coffee than his teenage body can handle, and Klaus says more than once that mixing apocalyptic trauma and caffeine is rotting his brain. Everyone else seems to agree, but Five is the most sensible out of them all, even when drunk, or insane, so they let him scribble down equations and hop through time anyway.

Diego goes back to his vigilante business, annoying Patch as usual. But this time she’s more forgiving. They go for coffee a few times and Diego thinks maybe he’ll ask her out again, but he gets the impression that she just isn’t interested. That stings a bit, especially when she explains it to him one night after a particularly difficult case. They were in the parking lot, it was dark and chilly and Diego was leaning against his car.

“You’re a good guy Diego.” She had said, fidgeting with her car keys. “And as much as I hate when you meddle with my evidence, I’m glad to have you as a friend.” Diego had responded with some joke and a sarcastic smile but she just looked down at the ground. It had been a long day, but they had been getting along better than they used to. 

“I just don’t want you to think I’m leading you on, okay?” She said and Diego's face fell a little, but if he was honest with himself, he had been expecting it.

“Yeah of course.”

“Just friends?” she said hopefully. 

“Just friends.” Diego agreed, and it didn’t hurt as much as he thought it would. And so Patch smiled at him, gave him a pat on the shoulder and got into her car. 

Since then, they only got closer, and as much as Diego missed her sometimes, she got a boyfriend, and he had a full schedule. No time for anything more than work and training. Plus, being just friends was nice. 

Being friends was particularly nice when Diego met a man named Andrew who had a kind smile and a bad taste in books.

Diego was dropping Klaus off for one of his rehab meetings and outside the building was a tall man with long curly hair. Patch had asked Diego to bring her clothes to the donation bin, which so happened to be in the parking lot next to the rehab center, so Diego had to walk right by this man, who was sitting on the bench reading a book with a cup of iced coffee.

The stranger looked up from his book and smiled as Diego walked past and Diego caught the cover of the book, stomach dropping. He stumbled to a stop and looked at the book angrily.

“You okay man?” He asked.

“Why are you reading that?” Diego glared some more.

“I don’t know, the librarian recommended it.”

“It’s a horrible book.”

“The writing isn’t too bad.”

“It’s all lies. It’s a grab for money, to write about people who are already famous. And a huge invasion of privacy,” Diego says and the guy looks at him like he’s crazy for a second before a look of understanding crosses his face. Diego thinks maybe he shouldn’t have said anything at all.

“I’m sorry, I’ve only read the prologue,” He says, closing the book. “Are you…?” He doesn’t finish the sentence, but Diego knows what he’s asking. Are you one of them? Is your last name Hargreeves? Are you just as fucked up as the book says you are? Are you part of the Umbrella Academy?

“No.” Diego says curtly, adjusting his hold on the box of clothes and walking away towards the donation bin. When he walks back towards his car, the guy has put the book down completely, and is just drinking his coffee and looking at the clouds. Diego doesn’t know what to think of that. When he passes the bench, the stranger stands up.

“Hey, I’m sorry, I really just picked up a random book,”

“It’s fine, I don’t care.”

“Alright. I’m still not going to read it though.” He says and Diego rolls his eyes. “Do you want to sit?”

“Why?”

“Because I have another 20 minutes before I have to go back inside and I don’t have a book to entertain me anymore.”

“Read the book, I don’t care.” Diego mutters, but he clearly cares. The guy, Andrew, his name tag says, picks up the book and tosses it into the trash can a few feet away. “Or don’t I guess.” Diego mutters. It was an impressive shot for someone who can’t manipulate an objects trajectory, maybe he played basketball. Diego sits down.

“I’m Andrew.” 

“Diego.” They shake hands and Diego, with his piles of trauma and trust issues tries not to get too comfortable (but Andrew has a nice smile and a friendly demeanor and Diego hates how he feels like he can trust him after only a single short conversation).

***

Allison, as it seems, can be just as convincing without her power as she is with it. Even when she couldn’t speak. As much as Klaus didn’t want to (and didn’t think he would be able to) get a job, she somehow convinced him to apply. 

The apocalypse had been averted (for now at least, and as far as they knew), and training sessions had been going well. But Vanya was providing for Klaus completely, and Klaus did in fact eat a lot of waffles and break a lot of random knick-knacks. Plus Vanya was letting him take her couch, he should help with rent until he can get a real apartment.

So he’s stuck shelving books at the library. Dave, from the diner, came in once to borrow a book called Dune, and then he started coming back regularly. He and Klaus have talked a lot, quickly becoming friendly acquaintances. Friends disguised behind the pretenses of I’m just doing my job. Klaus would swipe Dave’s library card some days, and other days Dave would be serving Klaus coffee at the little diner that he now frequents.

Dave is kind. He’s funny. He’s interesting. He knows Klaus’ coffee order by heart and he always puts extra whipped cream on his waffles. Once he offered to sprinkle chocolate chips over them and Klaus went on a ten minute rant on how chocolate chip waffles are the best, explaining exactly how he likes it when Grace used to cook them.

The diner doesn’t serve chocolate chip waffles though, so Klaus will manage. Dave starts serving chocolate chip pancakes the next week and he makes them exactly how Klaus likes it. No extra charge. 

Klaus starts setting aside books he thinks Dave would enjoy. He starts reading more himself, needing a distraction from his cravings and the ghosts that he doesn’t have the strength to banish. He starts a list of his own favorites, makes notes on post-it’s and sticks them into the pages so when he recommends them to Dave, he’ll find them.

He has also taken up drawing. Diego found one of his old sketchbooks from when he was a kid among the rubble of the Academy and Klaus spent the evening going through his old drawings with Diego and Vanya. The next morning, Vanya had left a brand new sketchbook and some pencils on the table. Klaus repaid her with a new violin case, which he had already been saving up for as a thanks for letting me crash on your couch gift.

The others still doubted him. Except Diego and Vanya. But Five worked with him anyway and eventually, he was able to banish most ghosts. It took weeks before he could keep them out all the time and a some time after that before he felt comfortable enough to work on making Ben corporeal, but he couldn’t deny his progress. And neither could the others. 

And so life continues on, almost seeming normal. Klaus still spends countless nights awake, ignoring Ben, ignoring the ghosts he could block out, ignoring his flashbacks and nightmares. And most days he wakes up slowly and sluggishly, unsure of where he is, fearing that maybe Hazel and Cha-Cha would show up again. Wishing he wasn’t sober and itching all over. 

He goes to weekly meetings and makes more of an effort to actually talk to his siblings. Namely, Vanya. But the change in their sibling dynamic feels like a complete 180 when Luther offers a ride instead of calling him useless, or when Allison asks for his opinion on a scarf instead of telling him not to touch her clothes.

Even when he’s making progress, it sometimes feels like he’s going backwards. But he’s begun to enjoy finding free time at the library and getting coffee from Dave. It was a bit of normalcy to his chaotic life. A small moment of calm to distract him from all the things he was trying to ignore. It was nice. Klaus was just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry there wasn't much dialogue in this one, I hope it wasn't too boring :)
> 
> I love and appreciate every single Kudos and comment, so thank you
> 
> Look forward to some Vanya content next chapter, I'm so happy that we finally get a canon WLW character!!!


	4. 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More family chaos! Vanya!!! I love Vanya. I love girls. Vanya loves girls! Also Klaus and Dave !!!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late update, I had a busy day, school starts soon and I am STRESSED

“How about for Fucking once, you don’t act like a goddamn CHILD?” Five yells. For a short moment, everyone goes silent. Five says a self satisfied ‘thank you’ and everything prompt erupts back into chaos.

“I’m here because I actually care about Vanya and Klaus!” Diego shouts. “And Allison sometimes!” He adds. Luther splutters indignantly and Five huffs, offended. Klaus is laughing at them from the corner.

“I’m not heartless you know!” Luther yells and Diego retaliates with no hesitation.

“You could’ve fooled me!” Diego has a knife out, “If you had a heart, you wouldn’t have drunk my smoothie!”

“Maybe I should leave then!”

“No.” Five interjects with a bored tone, but no one ‘s listening to him.

“Maybe you should!”

“Fine! I will!”

“No one is leaving!” Five tries again.

“Watch me.”

“AND NEXT TIME YOU DON’T DRINK MY SMOOTHIE!”

“For the last time! I didn’t fucking drink your smoothie, Diego!”

“THAT’S IT!” Diego drops the knife, deciding to just launch himself at Luther instead.

Vanya, who is sitting in the living room with a book, thinks maybe she should try to break up the fight, but Five is already pulling Diego back while Allison holds Luther back.

“No more fighting!”

“Yeah. No more fighting.” Klaus mocks. “Diego, I know you’re filled with untamed murderous rage, but please, Luther could pop your head off with one thumb.”

“He could not.”

“Anyway, it wasn’t Luther that drank your smoothie....” Klaus says and Diego turns to him slowly.

“Klaus…”

“Okay, in my defense I didn’t know it was yours and it was disgusting so I’ll never do it again!”

“Goddammit!” Diego says and Klaus gets up from his chair, dropping his knitting materials, and running out the door with Diego close on his tail.

“I’m living with children. I am living with grown ass children.” Five mumbles shaking his head.

“Five you don’t live here.” Luther says but Five just waves him off.

So the siblings still fought. But they had been getting better with being there for each other too. They fought over who took the last soda or who didn’t clean the bathroom instead of whether or not they should kill their mom or lock up their sister.

Allison had moved into a small mansion that doubled as the new Umbrella Academy gathering place. It was technically Allison's home, but they all had a spare room just in case. Klaus was considering moving in completely so he didn’t take up Vanya’s space, but he was taking his time because the move would mean taking a day off of work and he might miss Dave. 

***

Vanya was finally starting her lessons again. She was still first chair, and rehearsals were delayed due to the apocalypse scare and the shootout at the concert hall, plus Vanya was nervous to play with other people again. But she’s been regularly rehearsing with the rest of the orchestra for a week now and everything is going well.

She has students most days, and most of them are regulars, but there’s one little boy, Harlan who’s only been taking lessons for two weeks (one lesson a week). Harlan doesn’t speak, but he’s a quick learner when it comes to violin, and after just two lessons he’s starting to become her favorite student. 

Vanya shows him one of her solo pieces for the concert while they wait for Harlan's mom to come pick him up. When she’s finished he smiles and claps while Vanya puts her violin away.

“Your mom should be here in a few minutes, do you want some water while you wait?”

Harlan shakes his head no, so Vanya doesn’t bother getting herself something to drink either, instead she sits down with him.

“I’ve been playing violin since I was really young. Maybe even younger than you. I was always fascinated by music. It calmed my nerves. The violin especially. It used to just entertain me, or give me something to do while my siblings were busy…” She says, Harlan seems to be listening intently, but she doesn’t want to bore him. 

Harlan taps on the table deliberately, looking at the typewriter that’s set out on it. She has no other place to put it, even if it hasn’t been used since she published the book. So it’s usually just out on her table.

“I used to write.” Vanya explains, “I wrote about my life. And my family's life. It wasn’t good.” She says and Harlan stares at the typewriter some more. “I decided to stick to Violin. It keeps my emotions in check. It doesn’t hurt people. Usually.” She laughs and Harlan looks at her, a rare smile on his face. Someone knocks on the door and it must be Harlan’s mother, so Vanya goes to open it.

“Hey! I’m sorry I ran a little over the time,” She says with her southern drawl. 

“Oh no, it’s fine, I don’t have another student till tomorrow. Harlan is such a sweet kid.”

“Oh, thank you, Harlan sweetie, did you have a good lesson?”

Harlan nods his head enthusiastically and Vanya fills with pride. She always hopes that her students enjoy her lessons, and she seems to have a soft spot for Harlan and his mom.

“Good to hear. So Vanya, next week, same time?” Sissy asks.

“Yup, can’t wait.”

“Well have a great week then, darling,” Sissy smiles and she and Harlan are out the door. 

Vanya watches from her window while Sissy and Harlan get into their car, but then she feels creepy, so she decides to pick up her book instead. Only a few minutes pass before there’s a knock at her door again.

“Sissy!” 

“I’m so sorry! Harlan forgot his jacket!” She says and Vanya looks back to the chair where Harlan was sitting. There is, in fact, a jacket that had fallen onto the floor.

“Oh! Of course!” Vanya says, going to get it and dusting it off. Sissy takes it with a thank you, but then she stands in the doorway for a moment. “Is there anything else I can help with?” Vanya asks and it seems to snap Sissy out of her thoughts. She looks around Vanya's small apartment with curious eyes and Vanya’s cheeks flush.

“I’m sorry, I-” Sissy says, smiling nervously, “I was wonderin’ if you'd want to get dinner sometime.”

“Dinner?”

“Or breakfast. Or lunch. Whatever, really. Harlan is with his dad on Sunday through Tuesday until the papers go through for custody -” She starts to say, but then she seems to rethink her rambling, “That’s not important right now. I’m free on Friday if you’re interested.”

“I’m interested.” 

“Good.”

“Good.” Vanya smiles. She certainly wasn’t expecting that, and Sissy stands there smiling at Vanya, cheeks bright and eyes crinkling for another few minutes of awkwardness before she says goodbye again and backs out of the apartment. 

As soon as the door closes and Sissy is walking away, Vanya puts her hands in her hair and twirls, laughing. She has a date. A date with someone who most likely isn’t a psychopath. A date with a really pretty girl. A date with Sissy! She backtracks for a moment… a date with a girl? Huh. 

She hadn’t really considered her sexuality much. She never got the chance growing up since Reginald basically had her isolated even from her own siblings. And once she was out of the house, she was more concerned with being able to make a living for herself. Then Leonard… Harold… came along and he treated her like she was worth something.

He had been a manipulative shit, but she thought she liked him right? Was she just projecting? Thinking she was supposed to like men, assuming that’s how the world works and therefore tricking herself into falling for the first man who showed her any decency? What was the word Klaus used? 

Compulsory Heterosexuality. She’s angry at herself for a moment for letting herself fall prey to it. She doesn’t need to be straight. She doesn’t need to like men to be worth something. In fact she feels oddly comfortable with the word lesbian. She feels at peace with the fact that she definitely likes girls.

Or maybe she likes men and women… bisexual? She doesn’t feel at odds with her sexuality. Regardless of what it might be and whether she knows or not. She just knows that Sissy is sweet and pretty. And she has a date on Friday!

***

Klaus settles down at the counter of Dave’s little diner and rests his chin in his hands with his elbows on the counter top.

“Klaus!” Dave says, coming from the kitchen with two plates. “I’ll be right with you.” He heads off to deliver the food to one of the tables.

The place isn’t crowded. It never is. But it’s the end of rush hour and Dave is one of two working employees at the moment. Klaus doesn’t expect him to be there right away. He makes casual conversation with the woman next to him while he waits.

“I’m in love with that dress,” He tells her and she blushes like crazy.

“Thank you!”

“Where’s it from?”

“Oh, it’s… I made it. Kind of.”

“You made it?” Klaus asks incredulously. “Wowee, that’s cool.”

“Thank you!” She says and Klaus smiles, looking back at where Dave is taking an order from an elderly couple and their grandchildren. “Is he your boyfriend?” She asks and Klaus’ eyes go wide.

“No, no no no. He’s just… he’s a friend.”

“Oh!” 

“Not… no. not like that. I’m a regular here. We cross paths a lot you know?” Klaus explains and she seems to understand, but she’s still giving Klaus a smile that says she knows something more. Thankfully, Dave comes up to the counter then to bring the girl her drink before he turns to Klaus.

“The regular, dear?” he teases.

“That’s right, sweetheart.” Klaus smiles sweetly and Dave chuckles, turning back to go into the kitchen. 

“Ellen! Cover for me, just 15 minutes, please!” He calls before he disappears and Ellen, the other worker, looks at him with a fond annoyance and nods, clearly exasperated. On her way across the diner, she stops to give Klaus a knowing side eye.

“This is your fault,”

“Is not!” Klaus gasps.

“If you weren’t so gorgeous…” Ellen says, walking away again. The girl who made her own dress is looking at Klaus with a smug smile.

“What?”

“Just friends?”

“Yep,” Klaus pops the ‘p’ and then he goes to watch the kitchen doors for Dave to come back out. She rolls her eyes and smiles at him. 

“Have a nice day, stranger.” She says and he gives her a wave while she leaves. 

Dave is back in less than five minutes, a record time. He must have had the batter already made and cooking before Klaus arrived.

“You, my dear Dave, are my new favorite person.”

“Ha! Thanks, I try.”

“You succeed. How does it feel to be so important? People should bow to you as you pass, they should crown you waffle king, you make the best waffles. Just for me.”

“And for everyone else who orders waffles, but sure.” Dave laughs, leaning against the counter to talk to Klaus while he eats. 

“Are you on break?” Klaus asks and Dave shrugs. The diner has gotten a bit emptier, and he’s easily able to keep up with the customers while holding a conversation with Klaus.

“I’m loving the makeup,” Dave compliments as he pours coffee and Klaus dips his head in thanks.

“I’m trying something new. Allison got me some sparkly shit yesterday so I just.., put it everywhere. My sister’s floor is a mess now.”

“Sparkles suit you, I think.”

“I don’t know. I kind of dig the goth vibe. Maybe I should just combine them next time. Black eye shadow with sparkles all over. “ Klaus jokes, “Oh, I actually wanted to let you know…” Klaus swallows another bite of waffle, “I’m not going to be at the library tomorrow, I have to move my things from my sisters apartment to my other sisters place, which totally isn’t as spectacular as it sounds.”

“Cool, you’re moving in with your other sister?”

“Yeah, she got this big house and Vanya’s apartment is kind of cramped for two people. Allison’s a famous actress or something. Being related to someone rich pays.”

“Sounds like it.” Dave says, sounding slightly intimidated but also intrigued.

“Don’t worry, it's technically a mansion, but it's not huge or anything. And most of it was paid for with the inheritance we got when dear old daddy died.”

“Oh… I’m sorry for your loss.” Dave says with uncertainty.

“Don't be, Pops was a horrible man,”

“Well still, you must be a little bit sad. My uncle isn’t too great either. We don’t speak at all anymore and he tried to get my mom to kick me out. But I was still kind of down when I found out he was admitted into the hospital.”

“I guess so. It’s strange not having him around to judge me. I’m sorry about your uncle, that’s rough.”

“He’s okay now. It’s alright.” Klaus nods and Dave doesn’t know what to say next so he just watches Klaus finish his food. 

“So you don’t have a good relationship with your uncle? What about your mom?”

“We talk on the phone for holidays. She’s a good person. She just doesn’t know how to act like it.”

“Hm.”

“She was raised in a different time. I’m trying to forgive her for… not standing up for me.”

“A mother should always stand with her child.”

“Yes. But she was… it’s complicated.”

“That’s okay. I have plenty of complicated relationships with family. One time my sister wrote a book about our family and basically told the entire world about all of our secrets. Everyone hated her for a while.”

“That’s messed up.” Dave says and Klaus nods. “So there’s a book out there about you and your family?”

“Yep. unfortunately. It says some pretty nasty things too.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m over it. We forgave her. Like you forgive your mother. Even though she might have been kind of a bad role model at times.”

“Yeah.” Dave smiles and Klaus twists his empty mug of coffee on the table. “I’ll take that?” He asks and Klaus pushes it to him. Dave smiles at Klaus one last time before disappearing into the kitchen with the empty plate and mug.

When Dave comes back out, Klaus is halfway out the door, the “goodbye” on his hand held up to Dave, who’s smiling and feeling much better about his day than he had been before Klaus came in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just so y'all know, in this story Vanya is a lesbian, Diego is bi, and Klaus is pan (and nonbinary), Vanya is questioning a bit in this chapter, but she's definitely a lesbian :)   
> (the way I see it, Klaus also just doesn't really feel the need for labels)
> 
> thank you so much for reading
> 
> next chapter will be up earlier tomorrow <3
> 
> have a lovely day


	5. 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Basically just Klaus and Allison bonding, some bi Diego realizations (and supportive patch) and Klaus talks about his gender

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At this point I think I'm just projecting ALL my queerness onto these characters because we finally get some canon lgbt representation and IDK how to deal with it :)))
> 
> anyway, I hope you enjoy

The boxes Klaus had to move consisted of only 2 bins of clothes (most of which he had only bought sometime after the not-apocalypse), a small box of his ‘necessities’ as Allison labeled it, and his new art supplies and makeup. 

In the short amount of time between moving in with Vanya and moving back out, Klaus had acquired a whole new wardrobe as well as some actual belongings of his own. Having been used to living on the streets and pawning most of his things, Klaus’ boxes were light. And It didn’t take long for them to get him settled. Luckily, Allison had taken him shopping that morning for room decor and they left the store with four boxes of fairy lights.

Allison’s throat was still injured, but she was semi-fluent in sign language after working on a movie with a deaf man as her partner. 

Klaus wasn’t nearly as smooth with it, but he knew the basics and he had been practicing with Ben and Vanya every night, even if Vanya couldn’t see Ben. Since Allison couldn’t sign while they carried boxes through the house, Klaus just talked her ear off instead.

“Everyone talks about tea drinkers like they’re hippies or British or all zen or something, and I’m certainly not a tea drinker, coffee all the way, but let me tell you, a good cup of tea really is amazing sometimes. And iced tea?” Klaus hums. 

“I have a friend who likes tea. I used to not get it, but then he made me a cup of some weird lavender tea and I swear I’ve never felt more relaxed. I order it regularly! I don’t really know if it’s actually on the menu or if he gets it just for me… it doesn’t matter, it’s delicious.” Klaus rambles, ignoring Allison's raised eyebrow and smirk. 

“You can put that box by the window, sunlight and art go well together I think. I’ll set up the desk over there and the vanity and makeup can go next to it… I think that’ll fit, right?” He mutters, talking to both himself and Allison, who shrugs, putting the box down on the empty vanity by the window.

“You’ve been doing a lot of art?” She signs and Klaus nods.

“Yeah, it’s calming. Like Vanya with the violin. Makes me focus on something other than the ghosts and cravings. It doesn’t always work… but it does the job better than reading did. Ben hypes up reading, but it didn’t meet my expectations.”

“I’m glad you have something like that. Maybe you can show me some of your finished pieces!” At that, Klaus lights up. 

“Ooooh! Vanya says I’ve gotten good,” His family had definitely shown more care for his well being lately, but they had never really asked to hear about his interests. He was excited to finally show his siblings per their request.

Klaus digs through the box for his sketchbook and hands it to Allison to flip through. She looks at the pictures carefully with surprise clear on her face. 

“Klaus, these are amazing,” She signs. Klaus waves her off, turning around to unpack his clothes.

They spend an hour unpacking, mostly just admiring Klaus’ clothes and artwork and telling each other stupid stories and catching up. They feel like normal siblings for once and it’s fantastic. Klaus can’t get enough of it. 

Allison asks about the boy in Klaus’ sketchbook, who he’s drawn twice and painted once. So Klaus tells her about Dave and how he’s kind and funny and absolutely gorgeous. 

Allison teases him until he hits her with a pillow without even touching it. Klaus’ powers have definitely progressed, that’s for sure. He can move light weighted things with his mind and banish ghosts, and he can even make Ben solid, just not fully visible. Allison still seems startled by his newfound powers and shakes her head at him.

They end up looking through Allison's closet because Klaus has this gorgeous pair of pants, but he needs a top to go with it. “It doesn’t even need to match! I can pull off a mix and match kinda style!” He had exclaimed and Allison finally gave in.

As expected, they find a shirt for Klaus’ pants relatively quickly, but Klaus still continues to rifle through Alison's clothes.

“Can I try this on?” He asks, pulling out a muted red dress with a long v-neck. Allison nods and Klaus beams, turning back to the closet and pulling out a dark blue dress with sparkly sequins scattered along the bottom of it. “You’ll look stunning in this, we can do a fashion show!” 

Allison seems even more excited as Klaus does and so she takes the dress from him and shoos him into the closet to change.

When they’re both in their dresses, Allison puts on some music and they dance around her room, trying on more clothes; dresses, skirts, pants. When the last song on the vinyl ends, they’re both in front of the full length mirror.

“I used to hate you so much as a kid,” Allison admits when Klaus turns around to show off one of Allison’s new dresses. 

“You did? I thought you were just too busy with Luther to care about me. Or anyone else really.”

“Oh, shut up. The thing with Luther is non existent. We never actually went past friendship.” 

“Thank god, that would be weird as fuck.”

“Yeah, I know,”

“So you used to hate me, why?”

“You look better in all my dresses.” Allison jokes. She had ever truly hated Klaus, but as a child she had always been envious of his confidence in her clothes.

“Oh! Allison! No one could look better than you in anything!” Klaus says, hand over his heart like she personally offended him. “I’m gorgeous, I know, but seriously, you make every piece of clothing on earth look magnificent. I used to be so jealous.” 

“Thank you.” She signs, rolling her eyes and smiling. “You know… I got some expensive ass nail polish…” And she doesn’t need to finish the offer because Klaus is already sitting on her bed like they used to as kids when they would paint each other's nails. 

***

The piece of paper was (metaphorically) so heavy in his pocket, Diego could hardly walk down the stairs to his little place in the gym. At the same time, he felt the need to keep checking to make sure it hadn’t fallen out.

Realistically, he shouldn’t care. If he loses the paper, he simply won’t talk to Andrew again. No big deal. Still, Diego asks himself for the millionth time why he doesn’t have a real phone yet. That way he wouldn’t have had to make the nice guy write his number on a scrap of paper and he could’ve just shot him a text. 

Why is he so caught up with this guy's phone number anyway? It’s not like he likes him or anything. He had loved Eudora for such a long time, it was too strange to think of him being gay. But he found the guy attractive and it’s not like he’s suddenly ditching women… Andrew was just cute. And he happened to be a man. Nothing wrong with that. 

He’s upstairs again as soon as his vigilante gear is off and he has the paper with the number on it in his hands while he stands by the phone. He ends up calling Patch instead.

“Hello?” She answers, “Diego? What’s up?”

“Nothing, just… I’m just checking in.” He says awkwardly after a tense moment of silence.

“Oh?”

“I met someone.” He blurts. And she laughs, almost sounding relieved. 

“Good for you.” She says. Diego nods. “Any particular reason you’re telling me?” She asks when he doesn’t say anything else.

“It’s a dude…”

“Oh.” 

“Yeah. I’m not… I don’t know. He’s nice. Maybe i’m… bisexual? I should’ve called my brother. Klaus is the least heterosexual person I know…”

“It’s alright,”

“He could probably give me a dozen weird words to explain what I might be.”

“Well maybe that’s not what you need right now. I think sometimes just… being… without a label can be okay too. Right? You don’t need to be gay to like men. You don’t need to be straight to like women.”

“Yeah. Yeah. That’s true.”

“Great, so who is this guy. Did you get his number?”

“Yeah, I did. His name is Andrew, he works at the rehab center. He’s a counselor.” Diego says and Patch aw’s over the phone. Diego scoffs, telling her to shut up ‘cause he has knives and can kill someone with one flick of the wrist’, but she just calls him a ‘deadly cute’ until he threatens to hang up.

After a little while of talking to Patch, he looks at Andrew’s number again, picks the phone back up, and dials it.

***

Allison holds up her nails to show Klaus, who nods in approval, glances to his side, and laughs at something Allison can’t hear.

“Ben likes the flower.” Klaus says, pointing to the fucked up attempt at a daisy on Allison’s thumb nail. “I did a good job.”

Allison just shakes her head, afraid to sign anything and mess up her nails. Klaus looks at his own nails, alternating between a weird green color and sparkly black. 

“I think I should start wearing more color. I like green a lot.” He mutters. Allison nods, fanning her hands to dry the nail polish faster. Does that even work?

“It’s nice to have a sibling who likes this kind of stuff. Vanya never cared much for extravagant makeup or fancy dresses.” Allison signs eventually and Klaus nods. 

Oftentimes, Vanya would join them as kids when they hung out, but while Allison and Klaus liked skirts and tested out bright eye shadow looks, she typically strayed towards suits and button ups with only a touch of makeup. Klaus always thought she looked spectacular in all her short glory. The days the three of them hung out, Klaus felt like one of the sisters, and those are some of his favorite childhood memories.

“Vanya can pull off a suit like nobody else.” Klaus says and Allison nods.

“You could too. If you wanted to.”

“Oh, honey. I have pulled off many suits in my lifetime.” Allison laughs at that, though it makes no sound. “I just prefer the feminine side of fashion. More breezy.”

Klaus looks to the side and nods at something, Ben must still be sitting there.

“Ben?” She signs, Klaus nods. 

“He’s telling me to talk about my wonderful sense of style in relation to my gender. The supportive little brother that he is.” Klaus chuckles. 

He looks at where Ben must be again and Allison just watches, not judging. Klaus contemplates something for a minute, looking back at Allison, unsure. Ben is probably speaking again and a look of panic crosses his face for a split second before he turns back to Allison.

“You know… Gender is overrated.” Klaus says. Allison looks at him confusedly, but she has humor on her face. 

“It is,” She agrees slowly. "Fashion shouldn't be limited by gender." 

“So I’ve been thinking, for a long time now actually… I think the whole… being a man thing… isn’t for me.”

Allison tilts her head in question.

“I’m not a woman though. Gender is more complicated than just male and female. And I’m neither. Or both. I’m in between.”

“So what does that mean?” She asks.

“It means… I’m not your brother. I’m your sibling.” He says and Allison nods thoughtfully. She scoots back and leans against her headboard, patting the space next to her for Klaus to sit. Klaus settles down next to her and she leans her head on his shoulder.

“So should I not call you he/him anymore?” She asks

“You can still use he/him sometimes. I’ve been using he/him and they/them with Ben.” Klaus says. “Ever since I started getting in control of my powers I’ve been doing some ‘internal reflection’ and ‘self discovery’ and shit. It’s called non-binary.”

Allison nods while Ben looks at the two of them fondly, having known Allison would be cool with it. She signs again, “I love you no matter what gender you are.”

Klaus smiles gratefully and leans their head down on top of hers. She makes a mental note to do more research on the topic later. She’s gonna be the best goddamn ally Klaus could ever ask for.

“Thank you for telling me,” She says and Klaus mumbles; “thank you for being a good sister”. 

He heads back to his room with Ben, later that night after thanking Allison for helping with the move. They set up the little lights they bought along the ceiling before getting into bed with their sketchbook. Ben spends the rest of the night reading, while Klaus draws him, and after an hour, he’s asleep in his new bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am, in fact, a tea person (i don't like coffee i'm sorry) and I will now be referring to Klaus with both he/him and they/them pronouns, sorry if the switching around is a little confusing 
> 
> also the next chapter will have a little more plot for you!
> 
> have a lovely day, thank you for reading!!


	6. 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vanya is working on her powers when Five collapses, the siblings go through some of Reginald's old stuff and figure out how much of a meanie he really was

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soory for the delay, I'm starting classes so I might be updating slower, but I have NOT abandoned this fic :)
> 
> Reminder that Klaus is using he/they pronouns now

Grass stretches out as far as Vanya can see, the only houses are specks of dust on the horizon. There are craters of various sizes in multiple places across the field from previous training days, but as the weeks went on, and she gained more and more control over her powers, she caused less destruction.

It helped that she had taken up some mindfulness exercises. She and Klaus used to meditate together before he moved out. He bought some chimes and a tibeten singing bowl and Vanya let the sound waves relax her, trying to focus on manipulating the energy without blowing anything up. Then she would practice her violin while Klaus drew or painted or whispered to Ben.

Her training out in the field was quite different. Luther and Five switched off on helping and Diego came down somedays to help as well. Allison usually took her out for coffee or “girl time” afterward. It felt a bit like she was being mothered, but at least she was being included, so she didn’t complain. 

The past week Klaus has been joining them for girl time too and it’s like things finally settling into a normal family dynamic for once. She’s even excited to tell them about her date with Sissy! It’s Friday, which means after training with Five and Lunch with Allison and Klaus, she’s spending the rest of the day trying to decide if she should go casual or if she should dress up a little; which really only means deciding between buttoning up the last few buttons on her flannel, or wearing it open like a jacket over a tank top. Or maybe she should forgo the flannel altogether and just go for a nice t-shirt and some black jeans. 

She’s been texting Sissy daily since she asked her out, Vanya already had her number because of Harlan's lessons. There were only a few days between then and now, but it seems they’ve skipped the small talk section of their relationship and jumped right into the deep shit. Vanya couldn’t tell you about Sissy’s family life or her taste in books, but she knew that she felt trapped in her own life and body for years.

Sissy told Vanya about her marriage to Carl, who was her homophobic ex husband, and she talked about how her mother passed away as a child, leaving her alone to navigate a world where she was always forced into a box. Vanya opened up about feeling left out as a kid and how she suddenly felt more like herself than she has her whole life. She didn’t open up as much as she wanted to though. Last time she felt like she could trust someone, he tried to manipulate her into ending the world. 

But Sissy felt different. Sissy felt genuine. And vulnerable. She felt like someone who was looking for a new start without Carl. Without fear. Without speculation. Vanya needed exactly the same thing. 

She’s leaning against her car, waiting for Five, while she texts Sissy. Five shows up late, but only by a few minutes, and he dives headfirst into training like a seagull stealing someone’s sandwich at the beach. They work on less explosion, and more movement. They’ve been working on that for months and Vanya has basically got it down. Then they move on to manipulating her own soundwaves. 

Instead of using the sound of the triangle Five has been using, Vanya concentrates on the sound of her own voice as she hums. About halfway through the lesson, just while she’s getting the hang of it, Five staggers and Vanya rushes to his side. Nothing appears to be wrong with him, besides the fact that he’s leaning on Vanya to stay upright and swearing before trying to shove her away.

“I’m okay. Just lost my balance. Keep practicing.”

“Five, no, you look like you’re gonna pass out,”

“I’m fine, leave it alone.” He says harshly.His face has begun to shine with sweat and he stumbles again, but he catches himself quickly, pulling his focus back onto Vanya. “Try it again.” He tells her. And so she does. And the third time she’s able to successfully move the old truck Five drives, a full three feet. Five isn’t looking too good though.

“Why don’t we take a break?”

“Why? You’re doing well! Is it exhausting you, because that may be something we should look at.”

“No, I’m not-” She says, but Five is suddenly not paying attention anymore. He’s gripping his head and leaning forward, reaching out to steady himself on Vanya’s quickly offered hand. “Five?” 

“Shut up.” He shushes her, and she snaps her mouth closed.

“Are you okay?” She whispers when a few minutes have gone by and Five is still doubled over. He’s breathing regularly but in deep concentrated breaths, like he’s trying to work through pain. He nods, then winces, forcing himself to stand up.

“I’m alright. Sorry, It’s just a headache.” He says, but even as he assumes his usual old-man-leader stance, he’s grimacing a little too much to be normal. Even for him.

“Have you been getting headaches often?”

“Not enough to be worried.” He dismisses.

“Have you been sleeping?”

“Enough, yeah… now, back to your powers.”

“Wait, no, you’re seriously not looking good, Five, let’s go back to Allison’s.” Five looks at Vanya for a moment, finally giving in, and he nods.

“Alright, let’s go.”

***

“What happened?” Klaus asks as soon as Vanya walks in the door, a semi-conscious Five leaning heavily against her.

“I don’t know, he said he has a headache.” Klaus puts down their drink (a rootbeer float since he’s sober), and helps Vanya move Five over to the couch where he falls unconscious. 

“Maybe he just needs a nap.” Klaus says. Allison walks in then, eyes going right to Five.

“What the hell?”

“Call Luther and Diego.” Vanya says and Allison already has her phone out.

Twenty minutes later, the six of them, including Ben and not including Five, are standing around the dining room table. They left Five in the living room on the couch so they didn’t wake him up, but Diego immediately checked all his vitals, coming to the conclusion that Five had passed out from the combination of stress, overworking himself, and lack of sleep. 

“He needs to stop with all the coffee.” Klaus mutters. “What has he even been doing that’s overworked him?”

“He’s been working with the commission again.” Luther says hesitantly.

“How do you know?” Vanya questions and Luther shrugs defensively.

“I’ve been helping him.” He admits and Klaus scoffs.

“Why?”

“Why not, I needed a job.”

“What do you do?”

“I’ve been going through files, it’s boring, but I’m able to get basically any information Five needs until he can take it down from the inside.”

“He wants to overthrow the commission?”

“Yeah, that’s what it sounded like…”

“What the fuck Five. Why didn’t he talk to us? We could help!”

“Klaus, how could you help? You just talk to ghosts.”

“Uhm, excuse me, I do much more than that,” Klaus says, ‘pretending’ to be offended. “I can hit Allison with a pillow.”

“Pillow fights aren’t superpowers Klaus.”

“Whatever, I can still be useful.”

“How about we focus on what we can do right now?” Vanya says and everyone quiets down.

“We can’t do anything right now.” Diego mutters and Allison shakes her head, scribbling in her notepad.

“We could look through the stuff you and Luther saved from the Academy.” She has written.

The previous few days, Luther and Diego had spent some time digging through the rubble that was left of their childhood home. They came out with a box full of things that hadn’t been destroyed.

“I guess we’re doing that then,” Klaus says to Ben as everyone seems to agree. Diego grabs the stuff from the trunk of his car, and they spend the next hour flipping through dad’s old books, and trying to sort through who’s belongings are who’s.

The box had been full of the siblings childhood belongings, such as Klaus’ sketchbook, and Vanya’s first violin, but Diego and Luther had already sorted through that, leaving just Dad’s old books and journals behind. The most valuable thing being one of Dad’s journals, identical to the one Harold had stolen. 

The siblings were grown so it must have taken Reginald more than just two journals for his research, but it seems that the others were lost. Or perhaps he stopped recording their progress. Allison is the one flipping through it, finding notes on their sleeping and eating patterns. Some of it was really quite depressing. 

She comes to a page, about halfway through the journal, that catches her attention. Tapping on the table to get Klaus’ attention, she slides over to them.

Klaus reads it, hardly taking in the information at first, and having to reread it to understand. 

‘Number Four has shown signs of extraordinary power. During private training this afternoon, he lifted himself off the ground and hovered there, clearly in distress. He didn’t seem to notice or be able to control it due to his heightened panic.’ At the bottom of the page writing in a different colored ink ‘see page 304 for updates on number Four’s progress.’

Klaus immediately flips to the end, finding page 304. They read it, Allison reading over their shoulder.

‘Number Four shows signs of greater power. He is not putting himself to use. He could be much more powerful if he would only focus.’

‘Number Four has begun to self medicate. His weakness is growing. He was unresponsive during the entirety of his private training.’

‘Number Four…’

‘Number Four...’

‘Number Four…’

‘Greatest Disappointment…’

‘Number Four was found dead this morning. I had Grace identify his body for the police. I had warned him to cleanse himself and put his powers to use, but his fear overtook him. It was an overdose.’

‘Number Four is no longer Dead. I tried to convince him to train with me again, but he only laughed in my face. I predict that he shall overdose many more times. I can only hope this time he doesn’t come back unless he shall take me up on my offer to take control of his powers.’

“What the fuck, old man.” Klaus whispers. Allison is staring, wide eyed and horrified, at the page. She signs furiously at Klaus.

“You DIED?” 

“I guess so,” He tries to brush off. Ben is looking at him sadly and it’s making Klaus feel guilty. “It’s not the only time…”

“WHAT?” She signs harshly, catching the attention of the others. Klaus facepalms, getting ready for things to get messy.

“What’d you find?” Vanya asks, reaching for the journal. Klaus tries to hold it back, but Vanya already has it and is reading.

“Lemme see,” Diego says when Vanya’s mouth drops open.

“Sorry, Klaus. We can’t let this go.” Allison signs.

“You died?” Diego asks, softly. Then the question sinks in, head shooting up to look at Klaus. “Wait? You DIED?”

“It was years ago,”

“How are you still here?”

“Guess god just doesn’t like me.” 

“What?”

“God. I met her. She’s a little girl on a bike.” Klaus says.

“You died and met god?” Luther asks incredulously. Everyone is still looking on in shock, with varying degrees of horror and guilt and confusion.

“Yeah, she said I didn’t like her. Does anyone really, though?” Klaus laughs good naturedly, but the joke has the opposite effect on the rest of their siblings.

“Of course! People like you Klaus,” Vanya says with a devastated look on her face. 

“Why would you not tell us something like this?” Luther asks and Klaus only shrugs.

“Would you have believed me?”

“Yes!” Diego says, but then he considers it, “No. Probably not.”

“Exactly.”

“So you died.”

“I died. More than once actually.”

“When else?’

“Well I’ve overdosed more than once, I assume I’ve probably died from that a few times. Then right before we stopped the apocalypse, I hit my head at a rave.” 

“Why were you at a rave?” Allison signs, Klaus looks at Ben who yells for Klaus to “tell them about Luther!” But Luther speaks up before Klaus can decide not to.

“It was because of me wasn’t it?”

“You didn’t mean to.”

“You killed our brother?” Diego shouts, standing up.

“Sibling,” Klaus corrects quietly, before speaking louder, “He didn’t kill me, he’s just the reason I was at the rave. He was dancing with some guy's girlfriend and the guy was heading right for him so I jumped on his back and got knocked over.”

“It was still his fault,” Diego jabs a knife in Luther’s direction.

“Well he can’t come back from the dead, so maybe don’t kill him.”

“Diego, sit down,” Allison signs, and even if Diego doesn’t really know sign language, he gets the message, sitting begrudgingly. “Luther, you aren’t off the hook,” She writes, because she can’t risk him not understanding the sign. “But we need to focus on Klaus.” 

“Yes, let’s focus on me,” Klaus says with sarcastic excitement. 

“We should start doing combined training. We can help each other,” Vanya suggests.

“Ooh! Yes! Sister bonding!” Vanya laughs and Diego rolls his eyes.

“How much can you come back from?” Luther asks, “And how did dad train you?”

“And this is where I leave,” Klaus says, but Allison stops them with a hand on their shoulder.

“What was private training?” Vanya asks again and Klaus huffs.

“Nothing too serious. It clearly didn’t work.”

“Tell them, Klaus. They can help.” Ben says and Klaus ignores him, pulling away from Allison.

“I don’t want to think about how he’d train me after figuring out I couldn’t die though. Imagine that. Good thing I was already out of the house.”

“Tell them!” Ben says again more forcefully.

“Klaus, what did the old bastard do that’s so bad you can’t talk to us?”

“It really wasn’t that bad,” He insists, Ben glares at him one last time, “Oh fine! Alright, he just locked me in the mausoleum sometimes.”

“Sometimes?” Vanya asks, voice small.

“A lot. For hours at a time. All weekend one time. With all the ghosts.”

“What is it with this man and locking up his children?” Diego snaps, flinging his knife down at the table, he goes into a full on rant while Klaus tries to think of a way to escape the family drama. 

“First he locks of Vanya in a sound proof box that’s lit- li-literally used as torture, then he locks me in an- in- in an u-underwater tank for days on end, and Klaus in a mausoleum for entire weekends? The man was fucked up. He was- He -he- I would kill- I would kill him if he weren’t d-d-dead already!”

“Gosh, what the fuck,” Vanya whispers.

Klaus has already slipped through the door unnoticed, leaving their jacket behind and barreling down the street, determined to just get away from his siblings. 

“Klaus, where are you going?” Ben asks, trailing after him.

“I don’t know.”

“Come on, go back, talk to them. They can help.”

“I don’t need help, I’ve already died.”

“Just- where are you going?”

“I’m not going to get high, don’t worry.” Klaus mutters. They turn a corner, then another. And they make a decision. They hope Dave is still at work.

Klaus walks for another ten minutes, the diner Dave works at is only a few blocks away, but they stop when a car pulls up to the sidewalk next to them.

“Do you need a ride? You look in a hurry.” The driver says, even though they’re going in the opposite direction. Klaus looks up, and sees who it is through the open window.

“Dave!”

“Yeah, I just got off work. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m great. Just… going for a walk.”

“Right. So you don’t need a ride?”

“Actually I was looking for you…”

“Oh! Okay. Well… I can’t offer you coffee or waffles but… if you want to get in...” Dave offers shyly, gesturing to the passenger seat of his car. Klaus nods, ignoring Ben’s proud smile and clambers into the passenger seat.

“How was work?”

“It was good. Busier than usual. How was your day?”

“My day kind of sucked actyually.” Klaus laughs and Dave pulls back onto the road, looking at Klaus for a second to invite him to explain. “One of my brothers hasn’t been sleeping enough, and then we found out some shit about me from my childhood and my family is freaking out.”

“Oh, well that sucks. I hope your brother is okay.”Klaus nods distractedly. “Is there anything I can do? For you? You seem stressed.”

“I’m a lot of things Davie. Stressed is on the list 95 percent of the time.”

Dave laughs before looking back at Klaus with the same warmth that Klaus can never forget. The same kindness that is ever present and drawing Klaus towards him. And somehow, Klaus wants to open up more than he ever has. But he never really has, too afraid of rejection or not being taken seriously. It’s a miracle anyone could make him feel comfortable enough to want to talk about his issues. But Dave is Kind. He’s a full time resident in Klaus’ thoughts. 

“You could always talk about it with me, if you want to,” Dave offers. And he smiles at Klaus so gently that Klaus thinks they might melt.

“You know about the umbrella academy?”

“No, not really. I’ve heard of it. But I only moved here a little while ago and I never really kept up with the media.”

“Well there’s a book, don’t read it, it’s shit, but in case you don’t believe me I guess…”

“I’ll believe you.”

“My dad adopted seven kids with weird powers. He didn’t even give us names, just numbers,” Klaus begins, “I’m Four. I can talk to the dead and move things with my mind. And we’ve just discovered that on top of the lovely ability to see ghosts, I also can’t die.”

“You can’t die?”

“Not yet.”

“Not yet? Not- wait! How did you find this out?” Dave asks, voice high.

“Don’t worry, I can’t die. We just read it in dad's journal. Apparently I was found dead some years ago. Still up and walkin’ now though.”

“Huh.” Dave says, he’s staring dead ahead at the road, looking worried, but not scared enough to drop Klaus on the side of the road and run. “So you see ghosts?”

“Affirmative.” Klaus nods. Dave is taking this much better than they had expected him to.

“Can you see any right now?”

“Right now it’s only my brother, Ben. He’s always here.” Ben waves from the backseat, but of course, Dave can’t see that.

“Your brother is dead?”

“I have four brothers.”

“Right. And one of them, Ben, is dead. Okay.”

“Yeah. So if you see me talking to no one…” Klaus trails off, but Dave understands. He pulls into a driveway, Klaus assumes is where he lives, and they both get out of the car. 

“I hope you don’t mind, we’re at my place. But we can go somewhere else if you’re uncomfortable,” 

“No, not at all,” Klaus reassures him. 

“I have that tea you liked. We could talk more… or if you don’t want to we could play cards or something.” Dave says, obviously nervous to have Klaus inside his house for the first time, even if it’s only as friends.

“Let’s go then,” Klaus smiles, settling Dave’s nervous chatter with a hand on his arm that makes Dave’s heart flutter. So they both head up to Dave’s house, already immersed in another conversation by the time they reach the door.


	7. 7

“Klaus you should probably get that,” Dave says when Klaus’ phone rings the second time. 

They had been talking for nearly an hour and a half and when Allison’s name, then Luther’s showed up on his phone, but he was quick to hit ignore. Now Vanya is calling him and he begrudgingly takes Dave’s advice and hits accept.

“What’s up, sis?” 

“Klaus, we’ve been trying to call you for the past fifteen minutes,”

“Have you? Must have missed that?”

“Can you come back to the house, we should talk about this more,”

“We’ve talked about it enough!”

“Five is up, he wants your input on upping your training,”

“I have a life outside of the academy, Vanya,”

“Just… Just come talk to us? Where are you?”

“I’m with… I’m at a friends house,” Klaus says, looking at Dave, who is bringing their empty mugs of tea to the sink.

“Do you need a ride?”

“I can walk.” Klaus says, and Dave sits down next to them, furrowing his eyebrow fondly.

“I can drive you,” He whispers.

“Are you sure, Diego can come pick you up,”

“Dave can give me a ride,” Klaus says.

“Alright, see you soon then. You better show up.”

“You got it, Vanny,” Klaus hangs up and groans, leaning their head back in annoyance and Dave rolls his eyes. “Family awaits…” They sigh and heave themself off the couch.

“So… does this mean I get to meet your family?” Dave jokes, but he’s also not joking at all.

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea.” 

“Oh, okay,”

“My family is the worst, I don’t want to subject you to such… awfulness.”

“I’m sure I could handle it.”

“I’m sure you could.” Klaus smiles sweetly.

“I could!” Dave protests, nudging Klaus playfully on the shoulder.

“Alright, well if they yell at you before we even enter the room, you are not allowed to run.” Klaus says, poking Dave in the chest.

“No running, got it.”

“Good, let’s go.”

***

As soon as they get through the front door, they can hear the rest of the Hargreeves siblings talking loudly. 

“Klaus doesn’t fucking know what he’s doing!” Diego shouts and Klaus winces, leaning against the door frame to the living room to wait for them to notice the two new people who have entered the room (technically three, but no one else can see Ben).

“Klaus does just fine,” Five interjects, Allison is signing violently and Vanya is doing her best to translate for the others, who can’t go that fast yet.

“Klaus has been progressing nonstop, you need to give him a break,”

“Hey… guys?” Klaus speaks up casually from the doorway, twisting one of their necklaces in their hands. “Yeah. Hello.”

“Klaus, thank god,” Five mutters.

“He brought a friend, great.” Luther rolls his eyes, probably automatically assuming the worst of Dave.

“They’re allowed to have friends.” Allison writes on her pad, Luther’s signing is still in the works, meaning during arguments it’s most effective for her to just write to him.

“Of course they are but- wait- who’s they?” Luther asks, Allison freezes, unsure of whether Klaus wants anyone else to know. She had been practicing addressing Klaus correctly for the past few days and it didn’t occur to her that Klaus might not have told the rest of their siblings. But Klaus seems unfazed, raising his hand lazily. 

“I am.” And there’s a sense of pride in his voice, “Gender’s overrated, I’ve decided to forsake the idea of being a man. I’m now nothing short of a mystery to all eyes who shath look upon my form.”

“Oh.” Luther says, looking confused for a minute before shaking his head “So you’re even less straight then I already thought you were,” 

“Less cis… but probably less straight too, yes.” Klaus says, pointedly not looking at Dave, unsure of what he’ll think. But Dave just puts a hand comfortingly on Klaus’ shoulder, squeezing gently and Klaus can feel the warmth of his smile without even seeing it.

“This whole family is less straight than you think it is Luther,” Diego says and Vanya thinks maybe Diego knows about her date with Sissy, but he’s not looking at her.

“You’re not straight either?” Allison asks.

“Men AND women baby,” he shrugs.

“Oh. Okay,” Luther mutters, clears his throat, and goes back to the discussion. “Well uh, is this your boyfriend then?” he gestures to Dave and Klaus.

“I don’t need to tell you about my personal life,” Klaus mumbles. “No, we’re just friends.” Dave doesn’t say anything, but he takes his hand off Klaus’ shoulder, clasping them awkwardly together.

“Either way, this is a family discussion, he needs to leave,” Five says authoritatively.

“I’m just-” Dave starts defensively.

“Nope. Get out.”

“No, no no. Five, you aren’t in charge here, you passed out from trying to be a one man show already, sit your ass back onto that couch.” Diego says.

“Yeah, go sulk in the corner like the moody thirteen year old you look like you are!” Klaus shouts, but Five just glares at him relentlessly like the angry old man that he actually is.

“Fine. Klaus, if you could take a fucking seat yourself, maybe we could actually discuss your… situation.” Five says, eyeing Dave. Klaus sits on the couch and Dave looks unsure of whether he should leave or sit, but Klaus gestures next to him as if offering a place to sit, so he takes it.

“You can leave if you want to, I’m not making you sit through this.” Klaus whispers to him, but Dave only shrugs, leaning back on Klaus’ arm, which is draped over the back of the couch. Five jumps right in.

“We know that Reginald’s methods of training Klaus were traumatic and unaffected, so we need new ideas for how to move forward with their newfound powers. Any ideas?”

“How about I just try not to die.”

“I was talking about the levitation, I don’t think we should test your limits on death. Unless you want to risk not coming back.” Five says.

“Levitation?” Dave whispers to Klaus, “You didn’t mention that,”

“It didn’t seem important at the time,”

“Well it’s important now, we don’t know what else you might be able to do that was simply undocumented. We don’t want another Vanya situation.”

And so they proceed to argue for the next hour, halfway through Klaus ushers Dave to the door and sends him back to his apartment with a phone number and a promise to call him later that night. 

They don’t reach a specific conclusion either. Klaus will focus on his levitation whenever he can, and apart from that life will continue as normal. He refused most of the help they had offered with his training, planning to just… not train… Klaus tends to prefer training alone and in a more casual setting anyway. His powers are his, and no one else got to decide how and when he practices.

***

Vanya has on a dark blue button up and a nice blazer left unbuttoned. She put more effort into brushing her hair and making it sit neat, but overall, it’s a casual setting. She fidgets with her phone while she waits outside the restaurant, and Sissy is a minute or so late, but she has a kid to take care of and Vanya doesn’t mind. She’s wearing a pretty dress with sparkly earrings and flats but Vanya still looks short next to her. She looks gorgeous, and the butterflies settle in for the night.

“Hello,” Sissy says, and Vanya smiles up at her.

“Hey.” 

“Should we go inside?” 

And so they do. The restaurant isn’t super fancy, but it’s definitely not as laid back as Vanya is used to. They order food and spend the first half of dinner talking about music and their childhoods and the stupid things they thought as a kid. Then they move into more emotional topics and Vanya manages to not completely overshare. 

Sissy is beautiful. She’s kind, and caring, and thoughtful, and Vanya wants to see her again. And again, and again, and again. They order dessert, but then Vanya asks for it to go, so they take their little to-go cups of ice-cream sundae and they drive out to the edge of the field where Vanya trains. Sissy has a big car with a big trunk, so they open up the back and put down the seats so they can lay back and just look at the sky. 

“I think this is the best date I’ve ever been on.” Vanya whispers.

“How many dates have you been on?”

“Two…” They both giggle, drunk on joy and the feeling of sharing a fudge brownie sundae with someone else. Someone who cares. Someone who is present, and hopeful, and just as complicated as she is. In completely different ways, sure, Sissy doesn’t have a family of superheroes who act like overgrown children… but she has a homophobic ex husband who’s battling for custody over her son, who doesn’t speak. 

Harlan is a wonderful kid though, and Vanya’s most thoughtful student, though he’s discouraged easily. The more Vanya thinks about it, the more she wants Harlan and Sissy to be in her life more. Gosh, one single date and she’s already thinking about moving in together, she’s hopeless.

“How many dates have you been on?”

“A lot. Too I didn’t keep count. Carl used to take me dancing. I was never as good as he wanted though, not the perfect housewife I was so good at pretending to be…”

“I’m sorry.”

“Oh, don’t worry yourself over it, it’s over now. There’s no way the court will side with him…” But she doesn’t seem fully convinced.

“You’ve got this. There’s no way he’ll win. And if there's anything I can do I’ll be there.”

“Thank you, sweetheart.” Sissy says, and she leans her forehead down against Vanya’s. “I had a great time.”

“So did I.”

“We should really do this again.”

“We should.” They just look into each other’s eyes for a few minutes, but then Sissy sighs, running her fingers through Vanya’s hair, she sits up straight. 

“I should get going,” Vanya nods, “Harlan is with his grandma next saturday…”

“That’s perfect.” And so Vanya promises to text Sissy to make plans, as well as throughout the week just because she can. 

Vanya is smiling the entire car ride home and once she gets there, Allison is waiting on her couch with a magazine and a cup of tea.

“Is everything okay?”

“Everything is fine, where were you?” Allison signs, smiling knowingly.

“I had… a date.”

“I knew it!” Allison jumps up, wrapping her arms around Vanya, then pulling her onto the couch. Normally Vanya would feel annoyed at her sister's intrusion on her privacy, but she has to admit that it’s nice to be close like this with her siblings for once. She has missed Allison, and she really wants to talk about how amazing the date was. 

“Her name is Sissy, and she has a son, Harlan, and she’s amazing.” Vanya sighs, smiling even wider from thinking about it.

“I’m so happy for you, I’m guessing the date went well? Tell me all about it!” Allison signs excitedly, and Vanya curls her feet underneath her settling in for the conversation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for the late update... thank you for reading this if you've stuck around  
> I already have the end written, I just need to write the last few chapters to get me there, I'll get there eventually though I promise just give me some time pls 
> 
> Have a lovely day/night <3


	8. 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I said I would update soon, but I’m here now at least…
> 
> And don’t worry about updating because the next (last) chapter has already been written! So it WILL be posted tonight or tomorrow

Diego is pacing back in forth, twirling a knife in one hand as he moves. Klaus has let himself into Diego’s room and is lounging on the floor with his back against the bed. They have their sketchbook out, even if it’s hard to concentrate on drawing when Diego won’t stop sighing and stomping around in circles.

“Just sit down, will you?” Klaus finally says, and so Diego pulls out his only chair carelessly and sits down, still twirling his knife, his other hand tapping against his thigh. “What’s up with you?” 

“Nothing.” Diego huffs, then he pulls out his new phone to check it again.

“Nothing my ass,”

“I think I have a date.” Diego mumbles.

“You think? If you think you have a date you probably do, then again you’re pretty oblivious, so maybe not…”

“Shut up, I do. I have a date.”

“I was wondering why you’re all dressed up. You’re not going straight in with the leather then, huh?”

“Shut up, Klaus.”

“‘ShUt Up KlAuS’” They mimic, then he turns to the side and whispers something Diego doesn’t catch, laughs, and then turns back to his drawing, a minute later they talk again. “You seem nervous” 

“I’m not.”

“Of course, mister knife man isn’t scared of anything, isn’t that right, Ben.” 

“I’m not nervous.”

“I believe you! You’re not nervous. And Ben isn’t always moving around while I’m trying to draw him!”

“Huh?”

“The little shit won’t stay still, I’ve had to fix the shading like four times because he keeps turning his head.”

“You draw Ben?” Diego asks. The other siblings were still getting used to the idea of Ben being right there with them. They didn’t talk about him much, but sometimes Klaus would pass a message by and everyone would get all sad. 

But Klaus had also been progressing with their training significantly over the past few weeks. They could keep Ben fully solid and visible for a somewhat extended amount of time. Sometimes he could even do it without focusing too hard. 

“Sometimes. I draw a bunch of things”

“Can I see?” 

Klaus hands Diego the sketchbook and he flips through it with more care than Klaus would have expected from Diego. There are drawings of the people that follow Klaus around, the ghosts, the ones that he can’t always seem to banish. 

There are also drawings of the rest of the family, but most are unfinished. A few drawings of Dave. Diego stops at one of Ben. It’s not Klaus’ best drawing, but Diego's eyes are fixated on it.

“It’s him,” He says, sounding choked up.

“Yep. That’s our Benny boy.”

“I can’t believe you get to see him all the time.”

“Well he’s gotten meaner since we were kids.” Klaus jokes, but Diego is still staring sadly at the drawing. “I can conjure him. Kind of” Diego looks up at Klaus wide eyed and hopeful. “I’m still working on it.”

“Will we be able to see him?”

“Yeah, if I do it right.”

“Is he here now?” Klaus nods and Diego follows Klaus’ gaze to where Ben must be. “You can’t tell the others that you saw him first”

Diego nods and Klaus shakes out his hands and closes his eyes.

“Only because you’re my favorite,” Klaus grumbles and their hands start to glow. 

Diego watches intently and after a few seconds, Ben fades into existence. He’s blue at first, and then slowly, the color becomes more solid too and soon a fully formed Ben Hargreeves is standing in Diego’s room, looking as alive as ever. Diego jumps up and reaches out to touch Ben on the shoulder, to test if he’s actually solid. When his hand doesn’t just fall through, He pulls Ben into a hug.

“I missed you.” Ben says and Klaus swears Diego said it back. They’re all blinking back tears and finally Diego lets Ben go and they’re able to have a real conversation.

Fifteen minutes later, Klaus is texting Dave while Diego and Ben catch up, but they’re interrupted by Diego’s phone ringing loudly. He looks at it like he wants to pick up, but then he glances at Ben.

“Pick it up, you have a date.” Ben tells him, so Diego does.

Klaus and Ben can only hear part of the conversation, and Diego is as emotionally shielded as they come, but when he hangs up the phone, Ben is smirking and Klaus is stuck eternally in an eye roll. 

“So, who’s this date with?”

“No one.” Diego shakes his head. Then he changes his mind and crosses his arms over his chest, “A guy I met a few weeks ago. His name is Andrew. I’m picking him up at seven thirty.”

“Well it’s seven right now, so we should probably let you do that then huh?” Ben suggests and Klaus nods, taking the sketchbook back from Diego.

“Sure, those are really good by the way. I knew you could draw, but, man, Klaus this could really be something for you.”

“Nah, it’s just a hobby.”

“People would sell their souls to have a drawing of a dead loved one like that. I’m serious.”

“Thanks.”

“Yep, now get out, I’m sure you could go bother Allison, or Vanya, or even that poor guy, what was it… Dave?”

“Yeah, Dave.”

“Go bother him.” Diego smiles.

“I think I will. Thank you hermano, and I hope you’re not planning on bringing this guy back here, it’s a mess.” Klaus says on their way out, Ben trailing behind him with a wave.

***

Klaus and Luther were sitting on the sofa in Alison's living room. Klaus was still adjusting to the idea that it was technically his living room too, for now at least. 

The week had passed fast, and suddenly it was Friday. Klaus had been planning the big reveal with Ben since before he manifested him for Diego, but he had quickly become confident in his ability to keep Ben solid and visible without too much effort for an extended period of time. 

When Vanya’s car pulls into the driveway, Luther puts down his book and he and Klaus head into the foyer to meet her. Allison is already there, pulling Vanya into a hug. Luther and Klaus give her a hug too, then while she goes back to the living room to talk to Luther about whatever book he was reading, Klaus follows Allison into the kitchen.

“What’s for dinner?” 

“I’m heating up Chinese food,”

“You ordered food?”

“I didn’t feel like cooking.”

“Dave can cook, maybe next time he could come.”

“You don’t need to ask me if you can invite your boyfriend over Klaus.”

“He isn’t my boyfriend.”

Allison shakes her head at them fondly and Klaus shrugs, leaning back against the counter. “Not yet.” he laughs.

Klaus is wearing tight black pants and a loose sage-green shirt that hangs off his shoulder. He looks around the corner into the hallway to see if anyone is coming. When the coast is clear he leans towards Allison conspiratorially.

“I have a surprise when everyone gets here.” He whispers excitedly.

“What is it?”

“Surprise! Allison. It’s a surprise!”

“So why are you telling me about it?” She laughs and Klaus looks over to Ben, who Allison can’t see… yet.

“Because I want to torture you with excitement.”

“More like fear.”

“Yeah, yeah, just don’t take too long in here, I think I hear yelling from the living room.”

“There’s always yelling from the living room, you live here.”

“Alright, well I hear Diego and Five.” Klaus rolls their eyes.

Back in the living room, Diego is once again arguing… no, passionately explaining… why he does not need a more permanent apartment, even though his bed is five feet away from his fridge and he shares his bathroom with everyone in the gym.

“Oh Klaus, thank god, make him shut up!” Five says when they come into the room, Diego and Luther finally settling down to greet them and Allison.

“Never thought you’d be happy to see me, little bro.”

“When are we eating, I have an important meeting to get to tonight.” Five says, ignoring Klaus pointedly because he is ‘not their little brother’

“We’ll eat soon, Klaus said he had something to show us,” Allison says.

Everyone turns to look at Klaus, who had just sat down on the couch. He looks around at the sudden attention and then looks at Ben. Ben shakes his hands and stands up, giving Klaus a small nod.

“I’ve never done this with people staring at me, give me a minute,” Klaus mumbles. They readjust themself into a criss-cross sitting position and holds his hands face up on his lap.

“You can do this Klaus,” Ben whispers.

Klaus closes his eyes and directs his energy into making Ben corporeal. Then there’s a gasp and they open their eyes again. His skin feels tingly, but it’s not in the bad way he’s used to. He isn’t itching. Or craving. Or desperate.

He feels calm. Serene. He looks down at his palms, glowing blue. Then he looks up at Ben. Allison is looking at Ben too, a hand over her mouth, eyes so wide it’s comical. Then Klaus realizes everyone is looking at Ben. Shocked. Confused. Grief stricken and unsure of what to do next. Klaus looks back down at their glowing hands and then back up at Ben who’s grinning wildly. Even Diego, who had seen Ben a few days ago, seems lost. I guess it takes a while to get used to your dead brother standing in front of you again after a decade.

“You did it Klaus!” Ben says and Klaus grins back, giving him a high five with his glowing palm.

“I did it!”

“Ben?” Luther asks, the first of the siblings to speak up.

“Oh my god.” Allison mouths.

“Hey, guys,” Ben says with a small wave.

Diego’s the first to actually do something. He steps forward and immediately pulls him into a hug, for the second time since they were kids. Ben nearly breaks down into sobs right there and Diego’s getting misty eyed as well. Both of them sniff and just hold onto the hug tighter. Klaus joins the hug, trying to bring some casualness into the emotional situation. But they end up with tears forming in their own eyes when Ben and Diego each lift an arm to include him.

Klaus reaches out, tugging Five into the hug. He acts reluctant, but he melts right into it. Klaus knows that despite his hard-ass attitude, he's really a bundle of love who missed his family intensely. Vanya joins a second later, clinging to Ben and Diego like her life depends on it. Then Allison and Luther, until they’re all crying and gross, and quickly pulling apart and diving back into their typical sibling relationship.

***

Dinner goes surprisingly smoothly, everyone keeps sneaking amazed glances at Ben and patting Klaus on the shoulder, and even though Ben doesn’t eat, they get to have an actual conversation with him. By the end of the night, Klaus, although exhausted, feels warm inside.

Five is the first to leave, to no one's surprise, and he lets Ben hug him before he takes off. Next is Vanya, who is having a late night movie date with Sissy while Harlan is with his grandmother for the weekend. Klaus wishes her luck and sends her off with a wink and a thumbs up, but Vanya only rolls her eyes, and tells him to shut up with her cheeks pink. 

Diego stays behind and the remaining siblings talk for a while before he’s off too, and Allison heads to bed, leaving just Luther and Klaus. Klaus starts to say something, but before they can Luther interrupts.

“I’m sorry I gave you shit about Ben.” He says, and Klaus looks at him, taken off guard, with a pleased smile. “We never believed you and we should have.”

“Yeah, you should’ve.” Klaus chuckles and Luther nods and pats Klaus on the back. They talk casually for a few more minutes, realizing for the first time that they actually have more in common than they had though. But it’s still Klaus and Luther, and they don’t have THAT much in common. 

So the conversation drifts, from Klaus’ knitting, to Luther’s exercise regime, to the shared trauma of being mistreated by their father. They curse him for being such a piece of shit, and then they laugh because they made it to adulthood anyway, even if they’re all fucked up for life.

Eventually the conversation approaches Dave. Klaus had been asking Luther about his interests in women, but he had quickly turned the conversation back to Klaus, in turn asking about Dave.

“Okay, so let me get this straight?” Luther says, glaring at Klaus before he can even make a gay joke (he IS the gay joke), “You’ve known him for months now, you like him a lot, and you’re almost certain he likes you back, but you aren’t dating.”

“Yeah,”

“Why don’t you just ask him out?”

“He could say no.”

“You’ve never had trouble asking people out in the past. You used to get with people all the time.”

“In the past I never really asked people out. I picked them up and maybe had a drink first or a smoke afterward… But uh- Dave is… he’s different.” Klaus says, and he’s smiling just from thinking about Dave.

“You’re whipped.”

“Am not.”

“Are too.”

“Alright, I am. It’s Dave! How can I not be.”

“Alright, well I’ll tell you this…” Luther says, and Klaus looks up at him. “From the twenty minutes I saw him last week, he’s just as in love with you as you are with him.”

“In love?”

“Whatever, he’s interested. Ask him out, Klaus. He’s definitely interested.” 

Klaus nods, picking at his chipped nail polish. He’s smiling wide and Luther gives him a tight lipped, but genuine smile, and hauls himself up from the couch.

“I’m heading out,”He says and Klaus gets up too, gives a good bye nod and a pat on the arm on his way out of the room, and heads up the stairs to their bedroom. 

That night, Klaus debates calling Dave, but after a few minutes of hovering over the call button, then the text screen, all while Ben watches with a condescending smile, Klaus just pulls up a selfie with him and Dave instead and gets out their sketchbook. 

***

The next day, Dave doesn’t even make up an excuse to be at the library. He had been doing that less and less lately. He finds his way to the desk where Klaus is sitting, bored and blabbering to Ben, or to thin air if anyone else were to look.

“I brought you coffee and a muffin.” Dave says, sliding a to-go bag and a hot cup across the counter for Klaus.

“And I will love you forever because of it!” Klaus says excitedly, taking a sip of coffee and smiling wide eyed at Dave, who looks back at him with just as wide a smile.

Luther was right, Dave does look kind of in love.

“So, how’re the books.”

“Unimportant.” Klaus shrugs. 

Ben nudges them on the shoulder and gestures to Dave expectantly and Klaus gives a subtle nod and eye roll. Ben smiles and disappears to who knows where, giving Dave and Klaus privacy.

“I have something for you.” Klaus says, reaching into their bag and pulling out a piece of paper. The page clearly came from their sketchbook, and he hands it to Dave.

“It’s of us,” Dave gasps, looking down at the drawing. Klaus nods, hopeful. Dave moves around the counter and goes right up to Klaus, wrapping him in a tight hug. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,”

“I love it, I love it so much. It’s beautiful.”

“Thank you,”

“You’re so talented Klaus.”

“Nah, it’s just practice. Plus you’re an easy subject, I like looking at you.”

“I know you do, you’re always looking at me.”

“I wasn’t sure if you noticed.”

“I’m looking at you too, if that makes you feel any better,” Dave says.

Klaus has never hugged someone like this. He’s never been sweet with someone like he has with Dave. And he terrified he’ll fuck it up. But Dave pulls out of the hug just enough to see Klaus’ face and smile, and Klaus thinks anything would be worth getting to love Dave. 

“Maybe we should go on a date then. So we can look at each other all night long without interruption.”

“All night?” Dave laughs and Klaus only shrugs. “As long as it’s with you,” Dave smiles, leaning in slowly to kiss Klaus.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you sm to everyone who kept up with this despite my irregular updates! Feedback is appreciated
> 
> I'm doing NaNoWriMo this year, so if anyone wants to message me on tumblr @king-of-queer-ships ... maybe we can be writing buddies just to keep each other on track :)
> 
> have a lovely day or night!


	9. 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time skip
> 
> wrapping things up :)

It’s been over six months since Klaus first manifested Ben for family dinner, and now Ben is corporeal nearly eighty percent of the time. He spends most of his time reading, and he’s taken up cooking. It’s totally not weird for Klaus to have his dead brother living with him and his boyfriend… totally not weird.

Klaus has been selling their art and doing seances as a side job while Dave is going back to college in hopes of being a veterinarian. They’ve been together for six months and at month five, they bought a little apartment. One that allows animals of course, because Dave volunteers at the animal shelter and just couldn’t not take one of the dogs home, and later Klaus found a stray cat that was just too friendly to leave outside. 

Luther goes back and forth between jobs, and he’s been helping Five out with the commission too, but he has friends, much to everyone's surprise. And his friends aren’t total assholes (another surprise). 

Allison regained partial custody over Claire and, by the courts suggestion, Patrick had settled nearby so he could maintain a relationship with his daughter. Of course it helped that he also had a job offer nearby. Allison’s voice was beginning to come back, but it was scratchy. Claire was a fast learner with the sign language and soon enough everyone in the family was on their way to being fluent, even if one day Allison’s voice would return fully.

Diego’s life hadn’t changed much, as far as the siblings knew. He liked his job and his home. He liked the solitude. But he had, accidentally of course, moved forward mentally in his life. He felt like a new person. He was happier. And maybe that was just because he had a relationship that lasted more than three months. He was finally allowing himself to open up. Even if it took years to work through his trauma and grief, he felt good about his progress.

No one really knew what Five was up to, he came and went and didn’t say much about work, or friends, or family. He still talked about Delores from time to time, but he didn’t visit her in the department store anymore. Luther said he did have friends. Albeit very odd and murderous friends. More like acquaintances really. But he wasn’t completely alone. 

And Vanya. Vanya was back to performing the violin, and she had taken up writing again, this time working with fictional stories though. And she and Sissy were thinking about a house. Now that Harlan was under Sissy’s care full time, and the homophobe of a father was mostly out of the picture, Vanya stepped up to help out. She loved Harlan too. She loved him like he was her own kid. Vanya and Sissy had promised each other that they would wait a full year before taking another big step, but Vanya had a feeling that this was it for her. 

All in all, the siblings were doing well. They had settled down. Five came bursting in to one of their homes every few weeks announcing a new problem with the timeline, or requesting that one of them help him murder some innocent person, but he’s dealing with his own trauma, just like they all are, and they are able to get rid of any real threats easier now that they’ve all been properly trained. Practice and research really does help if it’s not in the form of the inhumane training their father used.

Suddenly it’s been a year, then two, and there have been countless rough patches, but things are good. 

It’s spring, it’s a Tuesday, and the weather is disgusting, but Dave and Klaus are watching TV after a long, horrible day, and they’ve never felt more in love with each other. And so maybe it was out of the blue. Dave had never been a spontaneous guy, and technically this wasn’t all that spontaneous seeing as Dave fantasized about it quite a lot… But he hadn’t planned it. He didn’t even really think first. 

Klaus had gotten up to make them both a cup of tea, and as he came back he danced around the living room, twirling in their black yoga pants and long flowing sweater and spilling just a little bit of the hot tea on the floor. When Klaus came back for the second time with a towel and grumbling about never dancing again, Dave just blurted it out.

“I wanna marry you.”

“What?” 

“Do you want to get married?” Dave was suddenly horrified at himself. He had wanted this to be cute, a speech, rose petals, soft music, one knee. Instead they were in their pajamas on a soggy Tuesday night with the TV in the background.

“Married?” Klaus, although shocked, is smiling, almost like they can’t believe Dave would want to marry them. They sometimes wonder why Dave wants anything to do with them.

“Klaus Hargreeves,” Dave says, seeing Klaus smile, “I love you with everything I have. Everything in me wants to be with you. I want to spend the rest of my stupid life with you. I like… I love having paint all over our bedroom and I love your crazy outfits and your jokes and just… everything. Klaus I love everything.” Dave says and Klaus may or may not be crying.

“I love you too, I- I” He takes a smiling shaky breath and nods, “Yes, of course I’ll marry you.” 

“I didn’t mean to do it like this, I don’t have a ring to give you,” 

“I don’t care,” Klaus laughs, dropping the towel and launching himself into Dave. 

“I was gonna have flowers and music, and a home cooked dinner maybe,” Dave was saying between kisses, “I was gonna get a nice ring and- “ Klaus cuts him off.

“Dave, this was perfect, I don’t need all that.”

“I couldn’t wait,”

“I’m glad you didn’t.”

“We’re getting married?”

“We’re getting married.”

They decided to get a ring before they told people, because maybe then they could have this little bit of love and happiness to themselves for a little longer. But they were both obviously dying to tell everyone. Klaus could hardly keep it a secret. Especially from Ben who practically lived there with them.

A little under a month later, they told the entire family, who then proceeded to freak out (happily of course). And they hadn’t set a date but they weren’t in a rush. They were too happy. 

Summer is approaching fast, and according to Allison, a barbecue is the perfect way to start the summer. She was secretly hoping to start an annual summer-barbecue tradition for their family. And if Klaus is completely honest with themself, they actually think that sounds pretty nice. 

Klaus holds onto Dave’s hand, tugging him over to where Allison is standing next to Vanya. It’s approaching evening, and the whole family is gathered in the large backyard.

Luther and his friends are settled around a large picnic table arguing over god knows what. Diego and his boyfriend, Andrew, are sitting by the fire pit with Claire on Diego’s lap. He’s talking to her softer than Klaus has seen him talk to anyone and it kind of melts his heart.

Allison is at the food table with Vanya, Sissy, and one of Dave’s friends, Ray. Ray is kind and sweet and smart as fuck, and Klaus has become close to him as well. He was a friend of Dave’s by association, and when he bought a painting from Klaus, they ended up keeping in touch. He’s secretly hoping Allison will decide to get her shit together and ask him out.

Ben is corporeal, and talking to Five about books or science or something complicated and confusing. Klaus has never seen him so happy. So engaged. So wonderfully himself. He had always had Ben by his side, he worried that he would lose him when he learned to make him corporeal. Or that his family would discard his other talents, deeming him useful only because of his connection to Ben. He worried that they would only care for him because he had Ben.

But that wasn’t true. And he had forgotten how much he missed Ben being alive.

Sissy and Vanya are standing so close they’re basically hugging. Klaus would’ve been jealous if he wasn’t hand in hand with the most handsome man he knows.

He’s. Happy. Klaus Hargreeves is happy. And in love.

“I want to show you something,” he says, turning to Dave.

“What is it sweetheart?”

Klaus looks Dave right in the eyes, smiling gently, and he breathes. Focusing on the energy around him and the happiness he feels and the warmth radiating off his fiancé. His hands start to glow blue. Then little pockets of energy begin to crackle gently around them. Little blue splashes of light, charged with Klaus’ happiness, and Klaus’s eyes light up blue too.

“It’s beautiful!” Dave says, looking around.

“I’ve been practicing,” Klaus smiles. Admiring his new found power too. Little stars dance before their eyes, lighting up the sky and swaying in the breeze. Klaus is barefoot and floating a few inches off the ground, smiling and glowing lightly. Dave’s hands on his hips ground him.

“Everything is glowing,” Dave murmurs and Klaus nods, floating back to the grass and leaning in to kiss him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank ya'll for reading all of this, I love you sm :)
> 
> I appreciate feedback! and comments make me very very VERY happy i could cry reading some of these comments so thank you <3
> 
> this is the longest thing I've ever written, I hope you enjoy

**Author's Note:**

> I usually write out the whole fic before I post multichapter things, but I'm confident in my ability to keep this going, I just need some motivation since I'm feeling kind of down :(
> 
> so leave a comment and kudos if you want, I would appreciate that :)
> 
> thank you for reading, have a lovely day


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